At Dr D Studios, the producers refer to all of the animators as artists. They might say: “I’ll assign this shot to one of the artists” or “Let’s gather the artists around to have a meeting about the schedule”.

Even now, it’s not a term I’m 100% comfortable with.

Honestly – I’d rather be known as a craftsman.

And there is a big difference between artists and craftsmen (of course I’m including craftswomen here as well).

Art with a capital “A” is what happens when someone hangs your painting in a gallery, or selects your film for a festival.

Craft is what you do when you’re by yourself making stuff.

Think about what it means to be a craftsman:

Craftsmen care.

They concern themselves with quality of their materials and their technique.

A master pastry chef, or a furniture maker, or a fashion designer all put their talents towards making their work as good as it can be.

An artist might worry about getting “discovered”. But a craftsman worries about the details.

A great director could do a great job

You can’t tell me that a version of Akira directed by someone like David Fincher, JJ Abrams, Richard Kelly or Christopher Nolan wouldn’t be well-handled.

Akira is twenty-three years old

Akira was released in 1988. If you were born when Akira came out, you’d be old enough to drink by now.

Sure – just because a movie is old, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s ready to be remade, but fanboys can hardly use the “too soon” excuse.

Akira has problems

Right about now the internet is about to explode with rage and vitriol directed towards me.

But I saw the movie recently and there are significant problems with the characters, script and pacing that could be addressed in a new version.

Most of the third act of the film is dominated by Kaneda and Tetsuo fighting and screaming each other’s name at each other.

Tetsuooooo!

Kanedaaaaa!

It doesn’t make any sense. One short scene at the start of the movie where we see a pattern of Kenada bullying Tetsuo would make a massive difference in explaining the motivation of the characters.

In fact, the opposite happens. In flashback we’re told that Kaneda is one of the few children that is nice to Tetsuo – making their showdown even crazier.

The original Akira will still exist

It’s not like as part of the deal to remake Akira is to destroy all copies of the original.

Quite the contrary.

In the same way that the American version of The Office piqued interest in the original British version, it’s very likely that young people will get turned on to the original as a direct result of seeing the remake.

Don’t get me wrong – I think the original Akira is a flawed masterpiece. Even decades after it was made, I’m still stunned at the lighting and artwork. Not to mention the explosions, smoke, fire and flesh effects.

It’s brilliant, but I don’t think it’s untouchable.

In the hands of the right director, a live-action Akira remake could be fantastic.

In the V 48 hour film contest, three New Zealand animators created a six and a half minute animated short in a single weekend.

Mukpuddy’s film came third overall and took out the prize for best animation.

Meanie Pants is Mukpuddy’s second entry into the film festival, where teams have to write, edit, shoot and deliver their films within a 48 hour deadline.

Fortunately for us, they documented their progress with this “behind the scenes” video:

Seeing what is achievable is a powerful motivator and allows you to reassess reality.

Most people thought running a mile in less than four minutes was out of the question.

It didn’t seem logical to me, as a physiologist/doctor, that if you could run a mile in four minutes, one and a bit seconds, you couldn’t break four minutes. But it had become a psychological as well as a physical barrier. — Roger Bannister

Yet within three years of Bannister running a four minute mile, sixteen other runners had done the same. It’s now considered a standard benchmark for professional middle distance runners.

Rethink what is possible. Maybe the obstacles you face aren’t that real after all.